“Don’t just take the time to build one to one relationships and learn each team member’s role within your prospect’s organization, but go deeper.” – Jack Wilson in today’s Tip 406
How about you? What’re your #SalesFail stories?
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Jack Wilson on LinkedIn
Cinch IT
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today the new #SalesFailSaturday feature continues thanks to Jack Wilson and his willingness to always put himself out there. Jack is the Director of Franchise Development at CinchIT and a Sales Rebellion coach. Here he is with his failure story:
Jack Wilson: Hey there, Sales Success Community. I am happy and beyond excited to be one of Scott’s first sales fail stories. So here goes nothing. It was about two months into my new gig and like everybody, I wanted to make a big splash and show my employer that they had made a great move. Lucky for me, the phone rang with an inbound lead. The company looking for help with their IT was an iconic brand and a staple from my childhood. I was over the moon. I booked a meeting, I did my homework, and we were off to the races. The first step in selling managed IT services for us is to assess the environment. It’s our discovery process. We uncovered an unbelievable amount of ways that we can improve their business. The presentation could not have gone better. I secured a real champion within the organization and we had one over every person at the table except for one. The existing IT Manager, his vote lucky for me wasn’t enough to kill the deal and we collectively decided to move forward. At least that’s what I thought. Shortly after the close we started planning the implementation and for some unknown reason the progress was slow. Days turned into weeks and my champion was making promises that I started to realize we’re failing because they weren’t his to keep. He needed to rely on his internal team and those relationships were not the strongest. My failure here was that I had focused my relationship with each of the contacts on a one to one basis within that prospect, but I had been completely oblivious to the rift between my champion and the IT Manager. To make matters worse, I had completely waxed over a story that the CEO shared about how he personally hands out bonus checks to each and every one of his more than a hundred employees, which means he cares about his people and how they feel. Long story short, my champion ended up gone and the IT Manager was left in the driver’s seat. Needless to say, my closeness with his former nemesis was enough to spin me into deal purgatory and ultimately won in the last column. My key takeaways from this sales fail. Don’t just take the time to build one to one relationships and learn each team member’s role within your prospect’s organization, but go deeper. Strive to really understand the interpersonal dynamics between cross-functional team members within your prospects and then be careful not to align yourself too closely with your champion because when the unexpected happens, you want to be the last man standing.
Scott Ingram: Do yourself and favor and go connect with Jack right now if you haven’t already. We’ll have a link to his LinkedIn profile and more at DailySales.Tips/406. Then help me keep this series going. Either send me your own audio OR if you want to send an anonymous story along with your lesson learned. Send me an email to [email protected] and I’ll be happy to narrate your anonymous story for you.
Thanks as always for listening and telling your friends in sales about this show. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip!